In the evening, I like to listen to All Things Considered on NPR, and this year it has at times been very difficult to do so. The impeachment hearings for Trump pre-empted Mah Storeez several times over a few weeks, and I usually listened to the hearings without too much complaint. Yesterday, however, Trump decided to address the nation on the subject of the threat of the coronavirus (or, in Trumpland “carona”). Readers, I tried, but upon learning that Mike Pence is going to be the government’s point man on this pandemic, I had to turn it off, lest I recall Pence’s earlier efforts on the disease front and public health.

Instead, I replayed for Dr. Evil’s benefit a Gravy podcast that I’d listened to earlier in the day. It’s an outstanding story by Appalachian author Robert Gipe, and I am re-posting it here for your listening pleasure. If you have 25 minutes or so, please give it a listen.

Today I learned that two people died. One, I’d met in passing, only a few times, and many years ago. The other, I’d never met, and I only knew him from his writings. The humanity of both was evident, even considering these limitations.

Still, I know that many people are hurting from an up-close, personal loss. Because I love those people, I also hurt.

RIP NHL and CMP.

If I wait a few more weeks, I could write a post celebrating a year away from this site. Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and screw that up too. I thought about pulling the plug on Surly Farmer, but the hosting company auto-renewed the subscription, so as long as the money’s been spent, I guess I’ll keep posting at least until the next renewal.

Not much has changed on the farm. Both horses are doing well. Puck is fully grown now, but still a fairly small cat. We lost another hen in July, this time to a raccoon. I avenged her death the next night when the trash panda came back for a second course. In May the skunk population shrunk here in out corner of the county. Mama Skunk, killer of the hens in February, chose our hay shed as the perfect place to birth her brood. That wasn’t a good idea. [Pregnant pause for the Reader to connect the dots] I hated to do it, but they’re my chickens, man. Anyway, we’re down to two hens, but they are getting spoiled rotten.

Dr. Evil managed to snag a month-long trip to France with her folks, spending November tumbling around the country, based out of two gîtes, one in Albi and the other . . . well, somewhere else that I can’t recall. Dr. Evil’s parents are enamored of France, and while her father is happy to spend weeks there, her mother (a bit of a workaholic) is more comfortable with the ten-day version. Remote working has its benefits; Dr. Evil was able to attend to her work via computer and crafty phone call scheduling so as to only need to burn a little leave time, yet spend a month among the Gauls. Her mother joined their trip in progress, and everyone was happy. I got a t-shirt (which, combined with Dr. Evil’s homecoming made me happy).

We had a bumper crop (harvest?) of apples this autumn, which went right down the toilet, 1) when I started picking apples, only to find that crows had been pecking into many of the fruit, rendering them useless (unless, of course, you take the perspective of the wasp which takes advantage of the holes drilled by the crows), then, 2) after bringing in the remaining harvest and storing it in the basement prior to processing (juicing/dehydrating) and finding that the old saw of “one rotten apple spoils the barrel” is indeed true. The saw fails to mention that in addition to spoiled apples, you will also face a fruit fly problem. I got very proficient at catching fruit flies. You know that other maxim, “You’ll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”? Well, it totally ignores the fact that LOTS of flies prefer vinegar. Write it down.

And with that, I’ll close. I hope someone out there is still reading.